“We could have a séance afterward, do you think?” Princess Charlotte suggested. “Our guest could find out what the spirits have in store for her.”

“Really, Charlotte. This séance nonsense has to stop,” Edwina said. “You are becoming obsessed. And if the two of you behave this way when John’s son arrives, then he’ll think he’s come to a lunatic asylum.”

Cedric’s young men came to join us as we went in to dinner. It wasn’t the easiest meal I have attended. Edwina behaved as if they weren’t there, and the three elderly ladies focused their attention on me, peppering me with questions. Princess Charlotte offered to find out what the spirits had in store for me, and Virginia tossed off the names of so many men in so many countries with whom she had enjoyed wild affairs that my mother’s autobiography would have read like a girl’s school story in comparison.

* * *

IN THE MORNING, we got news that Cedric had gone up to town again and was staying in his club, obviously waiting for his mother’s wrath to diffuse. Wise man. While he was gone, the household entered into preparation for the arrival of the young Australian. A prime suite of rooms, facing the lake, was prepared for him. Servants whispered about him. The dowager duchess remained impassive but one could tell that she too was a little excited. I suspected that, for her, it would be like seeing her beloved son again. Cedric returned but kept well away from his mother. I’m not sure if they had a confrontation but I did hear his voice once saying loudly, “It’s my house now and you’d better not forget it.”

Not the most pleasant of men. I was rather glad no young woman was going to be stuck with him.

The day of Jack’s arrival approached. We had eaten luncheon and the sisters had retired for their afternoon siesta. I was sitting in the Long Gallery with the dowager duchess, halfheartedly reading the Horse and Hound when we heard the sound of tires crunching on gravel.

“Here they are,” she said, rising to her feet.

A lovely Rolls-Royce motor came up the drive. “Our solicitor’s motorcar,” she said. “He obviously does very well for himself writing wills.”

The Rolls-Royce drew up. Footmen descended on it like ants on a dead beetle. The chauffeur hurried around to open the back doors of the motorcar. A most distinguished-looking, silver-haired man, dressed in an impeccably tailored suit, extracted himself from one side. Then a young man got out and stood waiting, his back toward us. He was tall and well-built with a shock of black, curly hair not unlike Darcy’s.

“I thought he’d be fair like Johnnie,” Edwina said. “He’s a strapping lad for twenty, isn’t he?”

Then he turned toward the house and I let out a little gasp. It wasn’t a young Australian I was looking at. It was Darcy himself.

“Oh, no,” I heard the dowager duchess say. “Of course that’s not he. I expect that’s his escort. Here he comes now and he’s the spitting image of John. I’d know him anywhere. We must go to welcome them.”